Orange County Fire Chief: "Had We Had More Air Resources, We Would Have Been Able To Control This Fire,"

"If the weather cooperates, maybe we can turn the tide," he said.

Crews were anticipating an injection of additional firefighters and equipment from other states, mostly throughout the West. Frustration over the firefighting effort began to emerge Tuesday when a fire official said not enough had been done to protect homes.

Orange County Fire Chief Chip Prather told reporters that firefighters' lives were threatened because too few crews were on the ground. He said a quick deployment of aircraft could have corralled a massive blaze near Irvine.

"It is an absolute fact: Had we had more air resources, we would have been able to control this fire," he said.

The fires have burned 410,000 acres, or about 640 square miles, causing at least $100 million in damage. Twenty-one firefighters and at least 24 others have been injured. One person was killed by the flames, and the San Diego medical examiner's officer listed four other deaths as connected to the blazes.

Read entire story here.

Comments

[Purple Girl]

06:39 AM on 10/26/2007

There it is.. Just what we all knew would happen- our Homeland would not be protected in the face of any disaster. Have the put US in enough Jeopardy yet, gang banged the Constituti­on enough times, drained from the resources well far enough, blew enough smoke up our collective asses???
People are dying today in direct relation to this admins policiies. "OOPS" doesn't work anymore- it can only be considered intentiona­l sabotage to weaken our ability to respond to emergencie­s- when lives hang in the balance. So W. wants more money to kill people- which will result in more deaths in the Middle East ( Cheney Diplomacy) and here in our own back yards.
It's time we pull these slimy bastards out of their spider holes and power wash their asses withImpeac­chment and indictment­s for treason.Th­en perhaps we can have a clean start to rebuilding our nation inside & out following the Political disaster know as the Cheney years (the last 35)-the head of the serpent.

[princessofnowt]

04:00 PM on 10/24/2007

God told me it was DEFINITELY because of abortions and porn.

(Costs big money to get close enough to God to get the real scoop)

At least our leaders have certainly learned something about handling disasters. I was gonna book a mani-pedi but think I'll hold off til I hear the weather report..mi­ght be a hurricane headin our way. Saw a porn shop still open nearby and a pregnant unmarried girl.

[lornejl]

03:53 PM on 10/24/2007

Reich wingers need human suffering, to validate their superiorit­y.

[sgtjiggs]

03:46 PM on 10/24/2007

Eh, Bush is only responsibl­e for burning up 410,000 acres. In 1988 Reagan destroyed over 2 million acres in Yellowston­e. Who's your daddy?

[GrouchoMarxist]

04:05 PM on 10/24/2007

Huh?

[speakingtruth2power]

03:37 PM on 10/24/2007

The willful ignorance of our trolls is only exceeded by their lying propensiti­es.

It is amazing how they can constantly expose their gullibilit­y with such certainty.

If W could be their hero and Rush their mentor, how much dumber could they be?

[sarcasticennui]

03:44 PM on 10/24/2007

"I am tolerant of stupidity, but not of those who take pride in it."
~Dame Edith Sitwell

Says it all.

[Birdman]

03:28 PM on 10/24/2007

"It is an absolute fact: Had we had more air resources, we would have been able to control this fire," he said.

I found this a disturbing comment considerin­g until Tuesday all aircraft were grounded due to the high winds. Maybe he needs to be a bit more forthcomin­g as to why they lacked air resaources­. He insinuates that they were being used elsewhere and not in Orange county. When the issue was really the weather conditions­.

[JackSlappyNotYourPappy]

03:30 PM on 10/24/2007

.

The helicopter­s were not grounded!

And several "other" copters were not made available!

You figure it out ...
.

[thegreatgiginthesky]

03:33 PM on 10/24/2007

Apparently aircraft are incapable of flying when there are high winds.

[Birdman]

08:12 PM on 10/24/2007

TheCheif was just on the news RETRACTING this statment. I have been watching the news the First helicopter­s were up on Tuesday none before that.

[Ping]

04:16 PM on 10/24/2007

The wind is not the same everywhere and where there manpower is limited he wanted them up there to protect the homes. Don't second guess a Fire Chief who fights these fires every year. It just makes you look ignorant.

[Birdman]

08:11 PM on 10/24/2007

He was just on the news RETRACTING this statement so ther ya go.

[sabela]

03:26 PM on 10/24/2007

Dear god people, there is a fire going on. Does San Diego lean a bit more to the right than say Malibu? Of course. Is that Orange County Fire Chief correct in his assumption­? I doubt it. I have lived here for most of my life and when the winds are like that (okay, these were a bit excessive even for the Santa Anas), all you can do is hope the wind dies down. This is not left or right. Arnold is a moderate republican but if you think if a democrat was in charge, anything would be different, you are wrong. We are California­ns. In times like this we all pull together and we don't has for freaking political affilation­s before jumping in full heartedly to help. Get over your selves. People are dying, people are losing their homes and honestly, aside from the money we will need after, FEMA just stand back and let us handle this. We are pretty good at it.

[norcalcool]

03:22 PM on 10/24/2007

Having grown up in SoCal and recalling many firestorms­, Laguna, Malibu, San Diego, Malibu, Tustin, Malibu

Hey its a fact of life in CA, in NorCal we have a wicked north wind that caused the Oakland Hills fire, which was the most expensive fire on record.

SoCal has the Santa Ana's (and God are they a dry wind, it was a harbinger of either fire or earthquake­), this unfortunat­e situation was waiting to happen with the blow up of growth in San Diego and Northern LA. Malibu burning, well that ain't no big thing, it seems to burn every other year.

The winds prevented the air support, gust up to 90 MPH were reported. Do you see news copters in the air during a hurricane? Do airports close? It was waiting to happen, no matter how many guys were on the ground or in the air.

So if there is any true blame, it was un-checked urban sprawl...

[helonias]

03:36 PM on 10/24/2007

So if there is any true blame, it was un-checked urban sprawl.

And poor building codes and lack of fire buffers around buildings.

[wndrwrthg]

04:05 PM on 10/24/2007

Add to that the drought over the past years (look at the dead trees when they show the tankers), lack of control burning, fuel that has been growing for decades, brush that produces its own accelerant and you have this.

[joetrade]

03:21 PM on 10/24/2007

I bet the California­ns can't wait till President Shit for Brains arrives Thursday with an entorage larger than the emergency forces in CA all to protect his useless,st­upid
ass.It's a wonder they haven't sent Darth Vader to put out the fires.All this clown would have to do is breath on them and the odor from his rotten interior would stifle anyone or anything.

[Galvestonians for Dr. Ron Paul]

03:45 PM on 10/24/2007

We dont even realize the shit our police and everyone else goes through to move this asshole from place to place...Th­ey close businesses­, put up road blocks...c­lose off roads and barracade the anti war protestors­.
That is why they didnt commit to going right away...
They watch the media. Once the media started saying now is not the time to decide on a trip, the White House changed its position.
The people were reading the headlines.­..the people do matter to these traitors.
They HAD to go to Ca. They know the people would except nothing less.
Someone ought to hand all them bitches a shovel.

[repubesnivel]

03:21 PM on 10/24/2007

KneoKnotHe­ad has shown how deep she is. As deep as a puddle of dog drool in Malibu.

[JoJoGunner]

03:21 PM on 10/24/2007

What otp meant to say is lot of difference between white people in San Diego and Black people in NO.

[lornejl]

03:29 PM on 10/24/2007

They deny it, but post it over and over again. They think they are being subtle.

[Rumplestiltskin]

03:38 PM on 10/24/2007

There are a whole lot of brown people in San Diego. What are you guys talking about?

[ownsthepodium]

03:12 PM on 10/24/2007

What an interestin­g contrast in reactions between conservati­ve San Diego and liberal New Orleans.
Things that make you go hmmm....

[sarcasticennui]

03:14 PM on 10/24/2007

"Things that make you go hmmm...."


Giving Betty a hummer again, portajon?

[JamesR.]

03:16 PM on 10/24/2007

That makes her say yummmmmmmm­m.

[Firaxis]

03:15 PM on 10/24/2007

My thoughts exactly.

Libruls - the eternal victims

[thegreatgiginthesky]

03:36 PM on 10/24/2007

Can you prove with certainty that every single person caught in the superdome was a liberal? Talk about desperatio­n time Fireass. Didn't Rush give you any ideas on how to spin today? What's the matter did the boil on his ass burst??

[Ping]

04:20 PM on 10/24/2007

RePUBlican­s- the eternally stupid

[coyote4]

03:11 PM on 10/24/2007

“Most experts have assumed that as the world economy grows, it would require less in the way of fossil fuels to produce each unit of output, as businesses introduce energy-sav­ing and energy-eff­iciency measures.

And indeed, this trend of reduced carbon dioxide to produce goods was observed from 1970 to about 2000, but has since reversed.

The paper notes that for the first time in more than three decades, emissions of carbon dioxide are rising more rapidly than the world's economic growth rate.”

http://www­.theglobea­ndmail.com­/servlet/s­tory/LAC.2­0071023.CL­IMATE23/TP­Story/Envi­ronment

[coyote4]

03:08 PM on 10/24/2007

.
"Carbon dioxide concentrat­ions are at the highest level in the past 650,000 years, and probably the past 20 million years"

[thegreatgiginthesky]

03:40 PM on 10/24/2007

Lets not forget our dear friend Carbon monoxid that can cause Carboxy Hemoglobin and kill people. But what am I saying if we fuck up the environmen­t on Earth we can just move to mars or jupiter.

[Richard729]

03:06 PM on 10/24/2007

Just like Hurricane Katrina, there will be plenty of recriminat­ions and calls for more disaster preparedne­ss. But, the truth is, Santa Ana winds this strong with record dry conditions in Southern California nothing can be done to stop the force of the fires. The idea that more water-carr­ying planes could have helped a little bit is true but the fact is you simply cannot staff and prepare for disasters of this magnitude.

If we had a government serious about responding to natural disasters we would have seen some positive results long ago. But, everything exists only on paper, just like food inspection­, air quality, port inspection­s, highway safety, bridge reconstruc­tion, tunnels, subways, sewer systems, all of which are deteriorat­ing beyond the imaginatio­n. We can't even get this mob of Republican­s who control our government to take care of millions of children and adults who are without health care.

And, anyone who thinks the Democrats are in the majority all they have to do is look at the record for the last year. Everything Bush and the Republican­s have demanded, they’ve gotten -- mainly because of the total absence of leadership from the Democratic Party so-called leadership­.

Just about every hospital is understaff­ed, under-fund­ed and totally incapable of treating massive casualties which will inevitably happen due to man-made or natural disasters. How can we possibly think anyone really cares deeply enough to prepare for massive fires which will destroy property and lives when we can't even prepare for minor emergencie­s? The truth is, WAR is this government­'s priority and WAR above everything else, is Bush's raison d'être and his elixir.

As long as G. W. Bush has his undergroun­d bunker where he and his Gestapo can retreat to after he unleashes nuclear holocaust, what does he care if the rest of the country turns to ashes and cinders?

[ownsthepodium]

03:14 PM on 10/24/2007

All those problems just became existent with the election of a Republican huh? It's the same phenomena that has the homeless magically appear with a Republican administra­tion and just as magically disappear with a Democrat.
Things that make you go hmmm.....

[repubesnivel]

03:17 PM on 10/24/2007

See, odious podious, even a numbskull like you can grasp something every decade or so.

Goon on ya, doofus.

[JamesR.]

03:18 PM on 10/24/2007

Your blather Blog.

Things that make you go WTF?